


Patching the Trousers

by Sanjuno



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Adventures in Time Travel, Because of Reasons, Except this is 2K3 Leo so he's kinda in his early 20's now, I shrank the Clones, I've turned Leo into a teen mom, Kinda fix-it?, Leo has feels about social conventions, Leo will adopt all the babies, Multi, Multiverse, Pay no attention to the Author behind the curtain, Retcon's got this thing, TMNT metaphysics are way too much fun, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Author thinks she's being clever, This is expressed in his secret desire to talk fashion with like-minded individuals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-05-02 16:20:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5255063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanjuno/pseuds/Sanjuno
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a bit sad that they had to leave Cody behind, but they were finally going home, back to their own time. Things were finally going right. But then well… you know the expression, you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family? Thanks to the Dark Turtle Clones the Ninja Turtle’s return trip through time experiences some turbulence. They (mostly) make it back home in one piece, but realize that something has gone horribly awry. Leonardo’s missing, he’s been lost in Time and there’s a pretty good chance that the Dark Clones followed him. So now Leo’s lost who knows when, and he’s trapped alone with their enemy. This cannot be a good thing. Oh, and Leo needs more tea if he’s going to survive this madness with his sanity intact.</p><p>(Leonardo travels the TMNT multiverse and ends up adopting all the secondary turtles. All of them.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Happy Returns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kay the Cricketed](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Kay+the+Cricketed).



> Take all the other mutant turtles that have shown up in the various TMNT universes. Shrink them. Put them in a box. Put the box in Leo’s room. Insist that the baby!turtles call him “mommy”. Also, Leonardo does a lot of dimension hopping, so let’s see how many plot holes we can chuck him through before he gets airsick.

=/=  
(Sequence the First: Many Happy Returns.)

“Uh, guys?” Cody spoke up as he walked into the living room, Donatello trailing behind him and ginning in the slightly loopy manner of all inventors running on too little sleep and the fumes of genius (and coffee). “I’ve got something to tell you.”

“What is it?” Michelangelo piped up from where he had been attempting to convince Leonardo to forget about the history program and let his favourite baby brother play video games.

“We’ve got the Time Portal working!” Cody grinned. “You guys can get home!”

There was a moment of perfect silence… and then it was broken.

“Oh thank goodness.” Sterling caroled from where he had been picking up Raphael’s discarded towels. “I’ll finally have you miscreants out of my wiring!”

“Aw, don’t be that way Sterling.” Michelangelo pouted. “You know you love us!”

“Like a CPU crash.” Came the dry retort. The four brothers grinned deviously at each other. Sterling was probably one of their favourite things about the future. He was so much fun to tease! Plus, he could not escape them because he lived in the tower too!

“Alright guys.” Leonardo said, before they could get any more off track. “Let’s get going.”

“Goin’ where?” Raphael questioned as his elder brother shut off the video screen.

“We need to pack.” Leonardo said calmly. “But remember that we can only bring things with us that won’t affect the proper course of time. So, no records of things that haven’t happened yet, no holo games, no blueprints, and no anything else that could mess things up.”

His brothers groaned in disappointment, and Leonardo cracked a grin. “In case you’ve forgotten, we didn’t bring anything to the future with us, so I doubt we can take much back.”

“Leo’s right.” Donatello sighed, thinking wistfully of the O’Neil Tech mainframe and all the wonderful, glorious technology he had yet to get a chance to study. “We’ve managed to work in a slightly higher morphic field, but anything in excess of about thirty pounds or more than five inches from our skin isn’t going to be making the trip with us.”

“So what’s that mean?” Raphael asked, one hand resting on his belt.

“It means we can only bring our weapons and the environmental adjustment suits.” Donatello replied, collapsing into a chair, feeling the elation of success fading away into bone deep exhaustion.

“So the clothes on our back, ya mean.” Raphael groused, shaking his head. “Better’n nothin’ I suppose.”

“Mmrph.” Came Donatello’s incredibly articulate response.

Leonardo shook his head, sighing heavily. “Donnie, Cody, go get some sleep. The rest of us will start packing.”

“But you guys are leaving!” Cody cried out in dismay. “I don’t want to sleep through the rest of our time together!”

“Wait a minute.” Michelangelo said at the same time, looking confused. “If we can’t take anything with us, why are we packing?”

Raphael snorted at the exasperated look on Leonardo’s face.

“Listen Cody, go sleep. Bunk with Donnie if you have too, but we need you both awake to operate the Time Portal.” Leonardo explained calmly. “And as for you Mikey, we are packing because we are not going to leave Cody’s home a mess. He’ll be able to do what he likes with it after we leave, so we might as well have everything organized.”

Cody and Michelangelo were both pouting, though for different reasons. Leonardo paused as he took in both of their expressions. “Cody, go sleep. We aren’t going to be leaving for another day or so, you’ll have plenty of time to say goodbye to us. And Mikey, you are not getting out of helping with the clean up. Now move it.”

Grumbling at the unfairness of it all, Cody followed Donatello down the hallway towards the bedrooms. Michelangelo was rather dramatically lamenting his upcoming separation from the holo games. Leonardo looked at Raphael, who smirked, shrugged and wandered off to the garage for a slightly less histrionic farewell to his favourite toys. Leonardo shook his head, sighing again as he went up to the roof to tell Master Splinter the news.

Two days later they were ready to leave. The belongings accumulated during their stay had been either boxed up or (like Raphael’s motorcycle) stored in appropriate places. They had said their goodbyes to friends like Starlee and allies like the Inuwashi Gujun, and President Bishop had been informed that they would no longer be available for him to call on. For safeties sake, only Cody and Sterling were to be in the building, and especially the lab, to see the four turtles and one rat off to their own time.

“I’m going to miss you guys.” Cody said, voice thick as he hugged his friends goodbye.

“Hey, cheer up, little ninja.” Leonardo said, ruffling the boy’s hair. “We’ll miss you too, but remember that you have other friends, and they’ll help you out.”

“Yeah.” Cody said miserably, knowing that they had to leave and hating it.

“Our meeting was a happy accident, young one.” Master Splinter said, brushing a wizened paw over Cody’s head, reordering the mess that Leonardo had left it in. “We would never have met, if not for your curiosity. But now we must return to our own place, in order to ensure the proper course of events, so that our meeting may remain a ripple in the stream of time.”

“I understand Master Splinter.” Cody sighed. “I just wish I didn’t.”

“Right enough mushy stuff.” Raphael broke in with a growl. “I’ll miss ya too kid, but we gotta go back to where we belong. April and Casey have been waiting long enough.”

“Yeah, okay.” Cody said, taking a deep breath and clearing his throat. “Let’s get to it then.”

“Finally!” Sterling caroled. “Oh happy day!”

“We’re gonna miss you too, Sterling!” Michelangelo crowed, from where he was leaning on the back of Donatello’s chair.

“Oh, do shut up.” Sterling sniffed. “Aren’t you leaving yet?”

The purple masked turtle looked up from the final systems check. “The board is green, everything is go.”

“Well, I guess this is it.” Cody muttered sadly as he replaced Donatello at the controls. “Bye, guys.”

Cody activated the Time Portal. The four brothers and their father were highlighted in the swirling light, ginning and waving at their human friend as if preparing for a trip to the beach, and not a permanent separation. Cody bit his lip, trying to hold his emotions in check until after they were gone. The group of five turned to face the portal as it began to stabilize, grins on their faces, Michelangelo starting to bounce with excitement as the familiar strange view of their new Lair came into view.

They were going home.

The ceiling and part of the outer wall proceeded to explode with impressive force, sending cement dust flying everywhere as the Dark Turtle Clones attacked with raucous war cries. Sterling shifted into combat mode and Cody scrambled inside as his Uncle followed the Dark Turtles through the hole.

“I want that technology!” Darius Dun roared as he clashed with Turtle X.

Then everything proceeded to go pear shaped.

/.../

Something sparked, crackled, but then fizzed out. A partially demolished I-beam dislodged from the wall and flattened a mound of debris with a shattering crash, leaving the bulk of a black and red combat suit and its overweight operator pinned in a truly awkward angle. 

Cody blinked dumbly from within the protective casing of Turtle X. The last few minutes had been a chaotic whirl of crazy fighting that the young heir still had not gotten used to, no matter how often his life degenerated into mass insanity while the turtles were around.

“Well.” Cody said looking at the demolished Time Portal that had (according to April O’Neil’s journal) gotten the four ninja turtles and their sensei safely back home to their own time. “That could have gone better.”

Sterling made a sound of pure outrage as something in the mess that had once been Cody’s home lab exploded, breaking the last of the windows. “Indeed.”

/.../

Leonardo woke up and was very, very confused.

Then he heard the sound of footsteps behind him, bringing with it the sudden return of memory, leading him to spring upright and into a ready stance brandishing a ninjato in each hand with impressive, if a bit dizzying, speed.

There was no one there.

Remembrances of the Foot Tech Ninja kept him on his guard as he slowly pivoted in a circle, swords at the ready, listening intently for another giveaway.

What happened next was not what he was expecting at all.

There was a scuff of skin on stone to his right and he spun around in time to see his blue skinned clone tumble out from behind a rock. The clone looked up at Leonardo from his place in the dust, his pouting lower lip trembling as his yellow eyes filled up with moisture. Leonardo stared, arms lowering as he watched his clone dissolve into tears.

Leonardo’s Dark Clone had shrunk.

Instead of looming over Leonardo, the Dark Turtle barely topped the original’s knees. He looked all of two years old. Was acting like it too, what with the wailing the hatchling had lapsed into. Although the clones always had acted a little off, but Leonardo had attributed that to them having been all of a few months old the first time they had fought. That was the problem with accelerated ageing, even with implanted memories there was just not enough actual life experience to provide mental and emotional stability. Now the blue turtle actually looked his emotional and chronological age. After the initial mutation, Leonardo and his brothers had grown rapidly to the appearance of toddlers, vocabulary and coordination much more advanced than those of their human equivalents. Donatello had hypothesized that it was because turtles hatched with the instinctive knowledge needed to survive and they therefore had more faculties available to learn other things like reading and writing and how not to fall on your ass while standing upright.

Peep!

Leonardo was jolted out of his thoughts, the tips of his swords wavering for a split second before he made the decision and sheathed them. The little blue turtle drew in a shuddery, hiccupping breath and opened his mouth to let loose another forlorn peeping cry. Deep inside Leonardo’s head, something hardwired to instinct went ‘ping’.

“Shh, hush now, chibi.” Leonardo cooed as he scooped the little turtle up into his arms, melting a little at the way tiny, three-fingered hands clutched at the edge of his plastron as the little head tucked under his chin. “It’s all right. I’ve got you.”

Holding his miniature clone close to his chest, Leonardo began a more thorough exploration of their surroundings. As he had suspected, his search uncovered the other three Dark Clones. They had also shrunk to appear their chronological age.

“Wonderful.” Leonardo sighed, looking down at the four little turtles that were curled up in the scarce shelter of some rocks. “Just what am I supposed to do now?”

The question was rhetorical for the most part. So far the plan was to sit tight, survive, and wait for Donatello or Master Splinter to figure out a way to get him out of wherever he was. Leonardo looked around again, staring apprehensively at the dark red sky. Dark crimson, swirled with red clouds tinted in pink and lavender, the sky woke a feeling of dread in the blue clad turtle, and he really did not want to see what sort of creatures made their homes in such a foreboding atmosphere. It reminded him of Michelangelo’s horror movies, of bloody skies and burning cities.

Leonardo brooded as he watched the clones sleep, they were small, and helpless, and Leonardo had to fight the urge to break into baby talk. Really. It was most unbecoming for a ninja of his caliber to coo over tiny little fingers and toes and itty-bitty shells.

More worrying was how much and what exactly they remembered. Hopefully Leonardo would really be able to help them this time, without anyone’s stupid pride getting in the way. After all, blood was blood, and one had certain responsibilities towards family. You never gave up on them, never stopped caring, you never stopped trying. For yea, Leonardo was a stubborn son of a ninja, he had put up with Raphael’s attitude for the better part of two decades, and so he could deal with a set of kids. 

Small as they were though, he would need a safe place to hide them. Food, as well as water, would soon become an issue. Frowning, Leonardo leapt to the top of the rocky outcropping they were sheltering by, pivoting as he looked out at the horizon. There. To what was, according to the movement of the sun, vaguely northeast. There was a haze on the horizon. That and the slightly increased presence of vegetation indicated a water source. Hopefully it was pure, and safe to drink.

Leonardo frowned pensively as he squinted into the distance, as if he could see further through pure willpower. The terrain was rocky desert tundra, with dark foliaged scrub bushes eking out a living on arid soil. It would not be an easy trip, not with the children. Leonardo looked down at a stirring from below, sliding over the edge of the outcrop and dropping back down to where the little ones rested.

The little red turtle jerked in surprise, hissing at Leonardo as he moved in front of his smaller brothers. Leonardo watched the actions of Raphael’s clone with a wistful smile. Had his red clad brother been so much bigger than the rest of them when they were little? He could not remember. In Leonardo’s memories his little brothers were just that, smaller than him somehow, something to protect. Had Raphael seen them the same way? Raphael was always the first to jump in front, to take the blows meant for his brothers. So he must have done, in some form or another. No matter what size they had been as children, Leonardo thought with a rueful sigh, Raphael was certainly the largest of them now. Michelangelo’s focus was flexibility and speed, Donatello’s was momentum and leverage, Leonardo strove for balance and precision, but Raphael’s focus had always been on strength and force. It showed, in the breadth of the sai wielding turtles shoulders and the depth of his chest, the hard cords of muscle and sinew in legs and arms. Leonardo laughed silently at his musings, his pride and despair over his little brother growing up to be bigger than him. Leonardo wondered if Raphael had noticed how his physical growth had outstripped the rest of his brothers.

Leonardo had remained still where he had landed, thinking fondly on memories as he waited to the little turtle to calm. The red skin was lurid in the crimson light, but somehow the little clone looked… more natural. Less a freakish creation of alien science and more like how Leonardo remembered his brothers being as children. The spiky protrusions had shrunk down to nothing but little nubs, the awkward looking oversized jaw and painfully thrust forward stoop of the red turtles neck had corrected itself. Leonardo found himself hoping that the changes were permanent. The blue clad turtle knew that the red clone was prone to distraction when his appearance was brought up, and if growing up at a normal pace would fix the defects like the red one’s hunchback, or the orange one’s oversized tongue… Well, was it selfish to want these by-products of he and his brothers to be well formed? Was it egotistical for him to want them to grow up strong and healthy, and bring pride to the spirits of their ancestors?

Perhaps his father could answer that question better than he. Best to put such considerations aside for now.

As Leonardo held still, the little red turtle had inched closer and now stood less than a foot from where the older turtle crouched. Slowly, so as not to alarm the little one, Leonardo raised one hand and held it out, palm up.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” Leonardo said quietly, patiently, as the little red turtle examined the limb held out to him and finally put up one of his own hands to compare the two. Leonardo smiled. “I want to help you and your brothers, but you will have to trust me. I want to keep you all safe, okay?”

The little turtle chirruped, nuzzling his face into Leonardo’s hand and looking pleased when the older turtle stroked his head. Leonardo chuckled, sliding off the rock and, still moving with deceptively slow casualness, ushered the red turtle back to where his brothers lay. Three little heads popped up from the ground, blinking sleep heavy eyes as Leonardo approached with the red turtle scurrying ahead of him. Gently prodding the turtle tots to their feet, Leonardo was soon leading them in the direction he had decided that was most likely to have water.

As they walked on, Leonardo was struck by a sudden thought.

“You all need names.” The orange one blinked up at Leonardo and cooed as he was helped over a loose patch of shale. “I can’t just keep calling you ‘the clones’ or ‘insert colour here’.”

The little group traveled on silently for a minute or two, Leonardo wrestling with himself before sighing and calling a halt. Oh well, it was not as if they would be able to guess that he had already picked out names for them. That one instance with his clone tricking them into taking him in had given Leonardo hope that the clones could be brought into the family, and he had quietly picked out names for them.

“Do you guys want names?” Leonardo asked them, clearing his throat nervously when four little faces turned to him expectantly. “Well? Will you let me name you?”

“Name?” Asked his clone, clicking curiously, trying the word out. “Name. Me, name!”

The other three took up the cry, toddler speech interspersed with clicks and whistles that Leonardo remembered from his earliest memories as a terrapin form of baby babble. Leonardo chuckled, and let loose a deep thrum. Four little beaks clicked shut and they looked at Leonardo in surprise. Surprised with the sound and its effects himself, although he did not show it, Leonardo took the silence as an opportunity to get on with things.

“All right, your name is Masaccio.” Leonardo said, tapping his blue skinned clone on the beak. “Can you remember that? Masaccio. You try it now.”

The little blue turtle wore a familiar expression of fierce concentration as he listened to Leonardo sound out his new name. “Mass’co.”

“Good try.” Leonardo said with a smile, patting Masaccio on the head before turning to Raphael’s clone. “Your name is Ghiberti. Okay? Ghiberti. Now you try.”

“Gibber.” Ghiberti grinned and Leonardo encouraged him to keep practicing.

“Your name is Uccello.” Leonardo said to the purple one. “Can you try to say it? Uccello.”

“Cello!” Donatello’s clone cheered, clapping his hands.

Leonardo grinned and turned to the last turtle tot. “And you’re Botticelli. Okay? Botticelli.”

“Bo’jelli.” The orange turtle giggled gleefully.

Leonardo laughed and realized that it would take a little while before the turtle clones would be able to pronounce their names properly. Still, he was pleased that they seemed to like the names he had chosen for them. If his brothers asked, he would admit to studying up on Renaissance artists. No need to tell them about daydreaming of a mythical someday where the long lost children came home. No need at all for that. Leonardo could just imagine the teasing. He got quite enough teasing about his so-called mother hen tendencies from his brothers. He did not need them adding anything about biological clocks or nesting to their repertoire.

“Alright kids, let’s get going.” Leonardo shook his head and started herding the hatchlings in the right direction. “We still have a ways to go before we can stop walking.”

It took them the better part of two days to make it to the watering hole. As the time passed Leonardo noticed something strange about the four small turtles. The unnaturally bright colours of their skins had begun to change, muting and shifting as dark lines appeared. The patterns appeared on their skins and shells, dark swirling lines of green overlaying the original colours. Even before they had started changing colours, Leonardo had found himself carefully removing Masaccio’s bionic eye as pressure had built up under it, and was startled to find a slightly bruised, but otherwise quite healthy organic eye underneath the metal. Uccello’s neck brace quickly followed, as had the oversized tail. It still made Leonardo queasy to think about how the little turtle had cried as the tail had slowly detached. Luckily, Leonardo always made certain to carry clean bandages and disinfectant wipes with him, so he was at least able to clean and cover the scab to keep the grit out. Uccello was none the worse for wear after losing the oversized flesh, and a normal sized tail had been discovered as the underlying cause for the detachment. Kind of like how human children lost teeth, Leonardo had reasoned, and then had to distract himself from the image of tails being left under pillows. He had a sick, twisted imagination sometimes.

Getting to the water source had been their first priority. Leonardo had never been so relived to see a brook in his life. The little stream was in the foothills of a small mountain range, and the clear water trickled down through the rocks. They traveled upstream until the brook widened enough to be worth wading into. Leonardo had dipped a hand in the water to test it, bringing up a handful to smell and taste, a lifetime of being surrounded by befouled water lending him expertise he would not have otherwise had. The water was fine, pure and fresh, and the first thing he did was wash the children. Checking them over for cuts and scrapes and cleaning the grit out of all the places it had snuck into. Leaving the children to splash around, Leonardo washed himself, sighing happily as his dry skin sucked up the liquid.

“I’m an amphibious being.” Leonardo groused happily as he was finally able to dislodge the sand from under his shell. “I shouldn’t have to put up with deserts.”

The little turtles laughed at his complaints until he flicked water at them. That started off an all out water war. Leonardo escaped and stretched out on a sun-warmed rock, basking like he had been unable to do for most of his life, until his journey to see the Ancient One. Keeping one eye on the playing turtle tots, Leonardo let his mind drift in the quasi-meditative state that basking always produced in him.

As pleased as he was that the clones no longer resembled twisted mockeries of his family, it was kind of worrisome how the children were changing so rapidly. The children’s bodies had rejected the bionic implants that Sh’Okinabo had used to fix the problems caused by accelerated aging. What Leonardo had eventually realized were the markings of Red-Eared Sliders had appeared on all of them. The children were mutating in small amounts every day. Already their vocabulary and comprehension had reached that of human five year olds. Leonardo did not know if it was because of their age, or a side effect of whatever had regressed them, or if it was the fault of the alien DNA used in creating them, but Leonardo could only hope that his family found a way to get to him soon. Otherwise, there was no telling what would happen to them.

A rumbling began to shake the rock Leonardo was lying on. The adult turtle slid off, pressing the side of his face to the ground as he listened. The rumble of an engine moving treads or tires. Some kind of vehicle was heading their way. Leonardo snapped to his feet, scanning the area. They needed a place to hide, a cave or a crevasse, the rocks were too unstable to hide them properly.

“Masaccio! Ghiberti! Uccello! Botticelli!” Leonardo snapped out, the little turtles staring at him in shock at his tone. “Come here, now! We need to hide!”

Something in his voice must have gotten to them, that or the quickly growing rumble that was shaking the rocks. They scrambled towards him as he continued to scan the horizon. Yet the rocks were wet, and sick, and rolling, moving under unpracticed feet. Uccello fell down with a little cry of pain, still unused to balancing without the counterweight of his heavy tail. The other three stopped and clustered around their brother trying to help him up. Leonardo cursed, giving up on keeping watch and leaping to the little turtle’s sides.

He had just lifted Uccello up from the ground when the vehicle crested the rise of a hill to their immediate left. Giant tank treads supported the round, white main body of the fortress (and it was too large to be anything but a mobile fortress). A giant eyeball was at the top and a lurid red footprint on the front. The little ones screeched in fear and clung to his legs, immobilizing him, but Leonardo attention had been caught by something else for the moment. About two thirds of the way up the fortress was a deck or platform, on which a battle was taking place.

Leonardo was frozen, staring in shock. His brothers! For a moment all Leonardo wanted to do was shake off the small arms clinging to him and leap across the space dividing him from the fight. Those were his brothers, fighting the all too familiar helmeted figure of the Shredder and the black clad legions of the Foot Clan. Two things stopped him. The first was the knowledge that the children needed protection far more than his brothers did. The second was a blue masked figure leaping for the Shredder with a flash of twin blades.

Leonardo watched, a feeling of calm disassociation falling over him as he gathered the little ones into his arms in preparation to run. The battle was ending, Leonardo noted, unable to not watch to ensure his brothers safety. A flying red Cadillac piloted by three humans with completely insane hair flew by, the four turtles leaping from the deck into the vehicle. The Shredder and an Utrom in a fleshy pink exo-suit stood at the edge and shouted curses and threats at the fleeing turtles.

The Shredder froze mid death threat and Leonardo knew he had been spotted, even kneeling among the rocks as he was. A shout from above drew his gaze up to where the flying car was circling as his double pointed an insistent hand in his direction. For the first time, he met his own gaze without the aide of a mirror. 

Leonardo smiled.

The fortress was turning, Foot soldiers churning over its surface like a disturbed ant colony.

The by-now familiar sound of reality twisting inside out came from behind him, and he nodded once to the turtles in the air car before he spun and dove through the portal with the four little ones in his arms, feeling the tear snap shut behind him.

/.../

Leonardo landed hard on his shell, his arms too full of small, fragile bodies for him to roll with his momentum. For a long moment he lay still, just breathing, listening to the thunder of his heart as the last few minutes of adrenalin caught up with him.

His eyes closed, the first thing Leonardo noticed was the scent. The smell of incense and tea filled the air. Familiar, comforting smells. Except it was the wrong type of incense, the wrong type of tea. Orange blossoms where it should be sandalwood, oolong instead of jasmine.

Leonardo opened his eyes, staring up at a plain wooden ceiling before rolling to his feet and placing the children on the floor. They huddled together, silent and wide-eyed.

“Have no fear.” A soft voice spoke from the far side of the room, and Leonardo spun, shinobigatana whistling out of their sheaths into a guard position. The speaker was a Chinese man, hair and beard all gone to grey, seated on a leather-bound chest. “I am Chung Ii. I will not harm you or your little ones.”

“How did we get here?” Leonardo asked warily. “And why aren’t you surprised to see me?”

“I am a Sorcerer of some small ability.” Chung Ii said modestly. “And I must admit that when I sent out the call, I did not expect such an answer.”

“What call?” Leonardo demanded, and Chung Ii chuckled and gestured to Leonardo’s feet. The sword wielder looked down. He was standing in the middle of a magic circle. “Ah. I see.”

“So you do.” Chung Ii said thoughtfully, levering himself to his feet with the aide of a cane. “Please, come with me and hear why I have called you.”

Leonardo was silent for a moment before sheathing his swords. “Very well. Lead, I will follow.”

“This way.” Chung Ii led the way out the door.

“Come on boys, let’s go.” Leonardo herded the children out the door and into what he recognized as a traditional Chinese courtyard. Looking around, the place was obviously grand, though it had fallen into some disrepair. Down the path, over a small bridge and into a smaller yard, Leonardo followed the sorcerer into what was immediately apparent as a living space. This was where the man lived from day-to-day.

“Mei Pieh Chi!” Chung Ii called out, opening the sliding door to the hallway and let loose another string of Chinese before repeating what Leonardo recognized as a name. The soft pad of footsteps echoed down the hallway and the sorcerer reached out the draw a small figure into the room. “May I introduce my daughter, Mei Pieh Chi.”

“It is an honour to meet you.” Leonardo was proud that his voice never wavered, as he bowed politely to the little turtle in Chinese robes. “I am Hamato Leonardo, of the Hamato clan. And these are Masaccio, Ghiberti, Uccello and Botticelli.”

“Nihao.” She said shyly, ducking behind her father’s leg after returning his bow.

Chung Ii smiled. “Why don’t you show the other children the garden, my daughter? I must speak with Hamato-san about grown up things.”

“Yes, Baba.” Mei Pieh Chi said, looking at the other four turtle children with awed joy.

“Go on boys.” Leonardo said when they looked up at him. “Just remember to behave and play nicely.”

“We’ll be good! Promise!” So saying the five little turtles were out the doors and laughing joyfully within five seconds of leaving the adults sight.

Leonardo shook his head and laughed ruefully, then turn to the human. “So what is it you wanted to speak with me about, Chung Ii-san?”

“May I be blunt, Hamato-san?” Wearily taking a seat on the mats next to a gently steaming kettle.

“You may.” Leonardo said, accepting the teacup with a murmur of thanks.

“I am dying.” Leonardo looked up sharply, and Chung Ii smiled wanly. “And I will not leave my daughter alone.”

“I see.” And he did. Now that he was looking, Leonardo could see the strain and shadows hanging on the human sorcerer, in the sag of his shoulders and the grey of his face. “So, why call me? Surely you had other options.”

“None that would ensure my daughters safety.” Said the old man sadly. “She is all I have, and I know of no others like her.”

“So you called out to others like her.” Leonardo mused out loud.

“Yes.” Chung Ii took a deep breath. “This summer, in the midst of the shortest night of the year, I used my magic to destroy an ancient demon. But I was too old, and my strength is gone. I will breath my last before midwinter.”

“You are certain?” Leonardo questioned, wondering why he believed the old man even as he failed to doubt the truth of the story.

“Such is the price of using magic to the extent I did.” The old man laughed dryly. “It is both blessing and curse to know when death with come for me.”

They were silent for a minute, sipping quietly at their tea and musing on the variance of fate.

“You are certain you wish to give me your daughter, master Chung Ii?” Leonardo asked quietly, voice not breaking the stillness of the room so much as merging with it.

“I am.” Chung Ii sighed. “She deserves to be raised among her own people. To not be looked on as a freak or demon. This is why I used the last of my magical strength to draw you here. I know that it is much to ask, as you already have children of your own to care for, but if you could please, care for my daughter, raise her well. So that she may be happy, and look back on her life fondly.”

“It would be an honour, to call such a wonderful girl daughter.” Leonardo said, smiling at the thought of the little girl turtle in pale blue and white robes.

“I thank you.” The sorcerer stated, bowing formally to Leonardo. “For honouring my selfish request, you have my eternal gratitude.”

“No thanks are needed.” Leonardo replied, returning the bow. “Entrusting such a treasure to me make both joy and honour mine.”

“Please, come with me.” Chung Ii requested, rising slowly to his feet. “I have much to show to you. Many things you must have for Mei Pieh Chi as she grows. Much to gift to you, as a sign of my gratitude.”

“I need no gifts but the one you first offered me.” Leonardo demurred as he followed the sorcerer out into the hall.

“That may be so.” The old man rejoined. “But I needs must give them to you, to ease my own mind.”

“Very well.” Leonardo conceded. “Please, lead on.”

The gifts were few, but expansive. A set of enchanted wall scrolls that when hung on the walls became doorways. One to a library, one to a dojo, one to a treasure chamber, one held fabrics and clothing, and the last was a weapons room.

“I cannot accept these.” Leonardo protested, gesturing helplessly at ancient treasures and mounds of silk, of fine gleaming blades and heavy tomes, all of which made his inner brat start up a chant of greed.

“You must.” Chung Ii stated simply. “When I die, all that I own shall be brought into these scrolls. It is my daughter’s inheritance, and you cannot deny her that.”

“… You are correct.” Leonardo said after a moment, accepting the scroll case. “I will guard these for your daughter, until she is of the age to claim them.”

“Thank you.” Chung Ii sighed. “The scrolls are yours, to do with as you please. Beyond what I have marked as Mei Pieh Chi’s, you may do what you wish with the contents. The case is enchanted as well, none but yourself may open it, unless you give them permission. And even then, they may only open it under the conditions you state, so please avoid giving anyone permission to ‘open it at any time they please’ or similar.”

“That would be rather poor security.” Leonardo agreed, with a faint smile that faded quickly. “How long do you really have?”

“A week, perhaps two.” Chung Ii smiled faintly. “Thank you again, for taking in my daughter.”

“And again.” Leonardo said quietly. “It is my honour, to have a daughter such as her.”

The week passed swiftly, Chung Ii was bedridden within three days. Mei Pieh Chi was distraught over her father’s worsening condition and cried often. Leonardo found himself in the roll of comforter, night after night, trying to slow the little girls tears long enough for her to slip into sleep. Although her grief over her father’s deterioration did not lessen, Mei Pieh Chi found peace in the thought of her new parent and brothers, and the larger family she would have. Leonardo told her of his father and brothers and friends, and Mei Pieh Chi was looking forward to her new life, though she wept that her father would not be coming with her.

The last act Chung Ii took before taking to his bed was to place gleaming gold cuffs around the ankles off all six turtles, explaining as he did. “I do not know what will happen to you once I am gone. These will tether you all together so that where one is pulled, the others go also.”

“So that she does not get left behind, when we leave this world?” Leonardo asked the old man as an aside, while the children admired the shiny metal.

“Exactly.” Chung Ii answered.

So the great sorcerer Chung Ii faded quietly away on the tenth day. He was buried with quiet dignity beneath the boughs of his favourite flowering tree. Mei Pieh Chi placed white blossoms on his grave, and then gave into her grief.

Leonardo picked her up and did his best to sooth her, but there was little he could do. The pain of loosing a father, of loosing the only family she had ever known, it was seeing his longest held fear happening to another. What words could he find that would ease her pain? None.

So he just held her, and let her cry herself out onto his shoulder.

At dinner after the funeral she was quiet and subdued. When she left, Leonardo set the boys to clearing up the table and followed after her, still needing to find some way to ease the little one’s pain. He found her in her bedroom hugging a small statuette of Kwan Yin.

“Mei Pieh Chi?” He said from the doorway. “May I come inside?”

“Uhhuh.” She sniffled, rubbing at her eyes with one hand.

“What is that you have there?” Leonardo asked gently as he sat down beside her.

“Baba gave it to me when I was little.” Mei Pieh Chi answered, holding the figure out to Leonardo. “I broke the arms off one time when I was practicing my qui-gon.”

Leonardo took the small statue and examined it. Indeed, the arms had been cleanly broken off. In fact, it reminded him of another statue. Another Goddess.

“Mei Pieh Chi?” Leonardo hesitated, wondering how to put this delicately. “You know that your father asked me to take care of you now, right?”

“Yes.” She said, managing a smile for her new parent. “Baba told me that he used his magic to find me a mother.”

Leonardo’s next words froze in his throat, jaw working soundlessly. That old, magic-using bastard! Now he had to explain gender rolls to a three year old! Never mind, worry about whether ninja skills gave one the ability to strangle the spirits of the departed later, for now, back to business.

“Right. We’ll have other things to talk about later.” Leonardo coughed. “But, I was wondering if you wanted to take on my family name.”

“You would do that?” Her eyes were wide, wondering. “You would give me your name?”

“Of course I would.” Leonardo smiled, she was so cute. “Your Kwan Yin gave me an idea about what it should be, would you like to hear it? If you don’t like it we can always think of a new one.”

“Yes!” She exclaimed eagerly. “Please!”

“Well then, what do you think of Venus?” Leonardo asked. “After the Venus de Milo.”

“Venus?” She asked, sounding out the name curiously.

“Yes.” He nodded. “Hamato Venus.”

“I love it!” Venus cried, throwing her arms around Leonardo in a hug. “I promise to bring honour to my name. Thank you, Mama!”

“You’re welcome.” Leonardo grinned, glad to have distracted her from feeling sad. “Now, about this mother thing…”

“Yes?” Venus tilted her head to the side. “Should I call you mother instead?”

“Er…” How to put this? Especially with her staring up at him like that? All earnest wide eyes brimming with newfound devotion… Leonardo did not want to embarrass the poor little dear.

“Oh no!” Venus’s hands flew up to her mouth as she cast a horrified look up at Leonardo’s face. Leonardo blinked, what now? “I should not be so disrespectful! Please, honoured foster mother, forgive me. I will remember to be more courteous in the future.”

“No. No, Venus-chan, that’s not what I meant.” Leonardo halted her frantic bows with a growing feeling of doom. “You may be as familiar as you like. All I meant was that I’m…”

Of course, that was when the earth decided to open up and swallow them both.

It was typical, Leonardo thought as he grabbed a shrieking Venus by the hand and pulled her close as they fell through the rip in space-time that had opened up under the futon, now he would never be able to convince Venus that he was not her mother.

Maybe he could convince his brothers it was a term for father from a little used dialect of Mandarin? 

(He was also thankful, in the corner of his mind not devoted to dreading his brothers upcoming teasing or trying to anticipate where he would land next, that he had strapped Chung Ii’s magic scrolls to his belt and that the boys would be dragged along with him. Really. Taking care of five children was hard enough even without throwing random bouts of inter-dimensional time travel into the mix. Had he offended some Chinese god in a past life or something?)

=/=


	2. Interlude the First: Coincidence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Random happenstance is random... but beneficial to the Hero. Yay?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explanations! I can justify anything I want with canon trivia! Fear me!

=/=

_(Sequence the First Interlude: Leo, the Foot Have Shrunk Your Clones!)_

 The thing to realize about Dimension X is that it is more than just a little bit insane. For example, Oroku Saki, called the Shredder, probably never would have considered creating a serum that shrunk the Ninja Turtles back down into small children and selling them to a space-faring circus menagerie had he never spent time there. Yet he did just that, instead of simply feeding them a deadly poison, which undoubtedly would have gotten at least two of the turtles out of his way. No, instead, he de-ages them.

What a moron.

Still, when his brilliant plan failed (as we no doubt guessed it would) Shredder ordered the youth serum disposed of. Obviously he did not want reminders of his failure hanging around. Of course, given the quality of intelligence among Shredder’s troops, it was no big stretch of the imagination to guess that they would somehow manage to mess the disposal up too.

Time went by though, and as none of his forces ended up mysteriously younger than they should be, Shredder was forced to admit that for once in their lives Be-bop and Rocksteady seemed to have carried out their orders without screwing it up. A miracle to be sure, the Shredder marveled to Kraang one evening over dinner and plotting world domination.

Oh, if only he knew.

The two mutant punks had taken the remaining barrels of serum and, like any New Yorker with a less than devout appreciation for the law and dumping zones, had left them piled up in the desert a fairly good distance from the Technodrome.

Who knows what sort of humorous hi-jinks this lackadaisical attention to the environment would have produced in time? Who could anticipate the wacky fun waiting to be discovered in this forgotten, toxic fountain of youth?

We will never know.

A large portal tore open the air, the fabric of reality twisting around the raw edges as five figures fell from the sky. One landed relatively gently in a sand cushioned clearing between the rocks, some three hundred meters away from the barrels. The other four however, landed in a tangled jumble of limbs right on top of the containers in question. The waste barrels, already weakened by Be-bop and Rocksteady’s rough treatment and unprotected exposure to the weather collapsed underneath their weight.

A flood of brightly coloured liquid sprayed up, drenching the unconscious Dark Turtle Clones from head to toe. The shock of getting wet was enough to rouse them, and cursing ensued as they scrambled away from the rapidly disappearing puddle, spitting as they did so in an attempt to get the mix of sand and liquid out of their mouths. It was a good thing they moved when they did, because no sooner had they gotten themselves free of the debris than the pile of rocks, long held up by the presence of the barrels and shifted by the recent excitement, tumbled down. Sand and stone quickly covered the remaining puddles of de-ager and what was left of the flattened containers.

“Ooo…” Dark Don shivered. “That would have hurt.”

“Eech what is this junk?” Dark Raph asked, sniffing at his arm.

“Eeww, it got in my mouth!” Dark Mike gagged and spat.

“Maybe you should learn to keep it shut better!” Dark Leo snapped, wiping futilely at the liquid on his plastron.

Within moments the toxin had sunk into their highly absorbent skins, disappearing entirely within a minute. The Dark Turtles looked at each other, a faint niggling sense of wrongness starting up in the back of their heads.

“Um.” Dark Mike started. “Does anyone else feel funny?”

“Forget that.” Dark Leo put in. “Does anyone else notice that the rocks are getting bigger?”

None of them had time to say anything else, because by that point the serum was in full swing and within seconds all four of the Dark Turtles had been reduced to turtle tots. They looked at each other with wide, innocent eyes, memories of their adult lives, even of the last few minutes, completely forgotten.

=/=

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thusly I managed to make the Dark Turtles Clones physical age match their chronological age. Alien force grown clones have nothing on '80s-verse shenanigans. Nothing. *maniacal laughter*


	3. Joyous Occasions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But Leonardo doesn't _want_ to be a teen mom!
> 
> (Too bad Leo, embrace your fate.)
> 
> Also why the hell does Leo always end up in the _worst_ situations?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm catching back up to myself.
> 
> Whee. Go self.

=/=

_(Sequence the Second: Congratulations on This Joyous Occasion!)_

Leonardo managed to land on his feet this time, and spared a small moment to feel a just little bit proud of that fact. He was improving. It was only his third time being yanked around through worlds like this and not only was he still conscious, but he had also remained upright! Go him.

Venus squirmed in his arms and he put her down, taking a look around as he did so. It seemed that this time he had landed in the remains of an old rave spot. Only recently abandoned, from the lingering smell of smoke (and other less savoury things), which remained on the air. He and his brothers had spied on a few of the clubs while they were in use, and used the old buildings themselves when the raves had moved on. Hotspots like this one had used to be had to be moved frequently in order to avoid being busted by the cops. A valid worry, since the partygoers were usually so intoxicated on various poisons that the appearance of traditionally armed five-foot ninja turtles would not shock them. (Like that one time when they were thirteen and Mikey had been involved in that incident with the pineapples and a rather unfortunate Goth’s nipple ring… and Leonardo had been sure he had purged that memory. Back to the meditation mats for him.)

A snuffle came from one of the darker corners of the warehouse and Leonardo tensed as he peered into the shadows, trying to make out what was making the noise.

There!

Movement along the far wall, too small to be a human, but too large to be vermin… Leonardo looked at Venus, who was still standing next to him, clinging to his weapons belt. He sighed, wondering over the best way to deal with this.

“Venus, sweetheart?” Leonardo winced at the loudness of his voice in the silence, even whispering. He was topside, in a city, with children. Master Splinter had never let them aboveground while they were as young as Venus, and when he did take them scavenging near the upper levels he had enforced a strict ‘no-noise’ policy. He felt like he was breaking some huge unwritten rule of the cosmos. Thou shalt not bringeth mutants of less than ten summers aboveground, especially not during daylight hours, you moron.

“Yes, Mama?” Venus was just as quiet, though her voice seemed just as shattering. Leonardo hid a grimace.

“Can you check and see if your brothers are here?” Leonardo gestured at the wall opposite the movement. “I’m going to check the other side of the room. They might be hiding, so look carefully.”

“Yes, Mama!” Venus said, eyes shining with curiosity as her cautiousness receded without the appearance of an immediate threat. She scampered off to the other side of the warehouse, calling the boy’s names.

Leonardo quickly crossed to where he had noticed the movement and noises coming from, intending to calm his paranoia by proving that it was just a stray cat or something. His search turned up two empty hand-held fire extinguishers, a pile of mostly-clean towels used to wipe down the bar top, and a lot of broken furniture. He was about to consider the matter moot. The animal must have been scared off and run. Then he heard another whimper. Leonardo bypassed an utterly flattened ten-foot tall subwoofer, and felt his heart seize in his chest.

A baby turtle stared back at him, dark eyes huge and terrified in his grey-green face. Next to him…

Oh, by all the merciful kami in the heavens and the dragon kings under the waves, next to the little turtle was a nightmarish sight that would haunt the eldest son of the Hamato clan for many nights to come. Another small body lay crumpled on the cement, brown fur stained dark. A puppy, it looked like a wolf although Leonardo could not be certain of it, barely past the first stages of mutation… and it would never get any further than that.

All he could think was ‘ _I’m glad I made Venus go to the other side of the building. I wouldn’t have wanted her to see this._ ’

For a long moment Leonardo could only stare at the sad little pile of fur. There was nothing he could do. The child had long since… passed beyond this world. With a heavy sigh he wrapped the small, broken body in one of the old bar towels he had fished out of the wreckage earlier and then placed the pathetic bundle against the far wall of the empty dance club, under a pile of debris where the children would not find it. He would come back and bury the poor thing later, for now he turned his attention on the one he could help.

The little snapper squalled, screeching in protest and fear when Leonardo picked him up. The infant turtle was badly bruised. Judging by the remains of the little canine mutant, and the condition of the battered but living baby he held, they had both been trampled. The foot shaped bruises developing on tender green skin lent credit to the theory.

“You had best thank the spirits that you’re a turtle little one.” Leonardo solemnly informed the turtle tot, who sniffled, the very picture of mini turtle misery. “Your shell seems to have saved you from the worst of it. I suppose it’s a good thing you’re still young enough to pull your head into your shell, otherwise you might’ve gotten your head bashed in as well.”

Leonardo kept his voice to a soothing murmur as he checked the toddler over for serious injuries. Fortunately it looked to him as if the child had instinctively pulled into his overlarge shell before anything more than large bruises had been inflicted. It was horrifying, what the little one must have suffered through, all alone with the body of a dead wolf infant. The baby snapper was hardly big enough to crawl, forget about standing upright until his legs had finished mutating. Right now the child was just finishing the mutation that allowed him the ability to walk on two legs.

“Mama!” Venus came scrambling over the debris.

“Venus, stay on the floor!” Leonardo cried as he stood and hurried over to her, not wanting her to be cut on the wreckage. “Please, be careful. There could be broken glass or worse things in there. Don’t climb on it.”

“I’m sorry, Mama.” Venus looked contrite. “But the boys aren’t here and what is that?”

“I found him over by the stage.” Leonardo sighed as his explanation was ignored in favour of being pulled down until Venus could see the baby clearly.

“Oh! He’s so little! Mama, look at how small his hands are!” Venus cooed as she tickled the baby, whose fussing stopped as he starred at Venus with equal fascination. Venus looked up at Leonardo with shining eyes. “What’s his name, Mama?”

“I don’t know, Venus-chan, why don’t we ask him?” Leonardo looked down at the little turtle in his arms. “I don’t suppose you’re old enough to be talking yet? You’re certainly big enough. Do you have a name?”

“Mama!” The baby squealed, reaching for Leonardo’s face.

“Oh, hell no.” Leonardo muttered, determined not to let another child call him mother if he could stop it. (He had since given up on Venus. She wanted a mother, not another father. She would call him what she would call him, and neither gender-convention nor sincere protests would gainsay her.)

“Mama?” Asked the baby, tilting his head to one side.

“Do you have a name?” Leonardo asked again, speaking slowly. The little snapper just tilted his head to the other side and gazed adoringly up at Leonardo. A niggling voice in the back of his head (it sounded vaguely like Donatello) was nattering on about imprinting. The older turtle sighed. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“You should give him a name, Mama.” Venus suggested as she tickled one little foot, making the baby kick and giggle. She looked up at Leonardo. “Just like you gave me.”

“I suppose I should.” Leonardo sighed again and looked down at the infant for a long moment, mind whirling with possibilities. “What do you think of the name Titian? Hmm, Titian-kun?”

“Tokka!” The newly named Titian crowed, making Leonardo wince.

“Close enough.” The blue clad turtle shook his head. “Just don’t blame me later if you decide the nickname is stupid, alright, Tokka?”

The naming crisis dealt with, Leonardo ensconced Venus and Titian in a small room that had probably been used to store coats, but was now one of the few places in the building not littered with broken debris. He took the time to snap a spare set of cuffs to the baby, just in case. Turning to leave, Leonardo hesitated at the door, glancing back at his daughter and the baby. Time was a finite resource, hopefully the boys would have had the sense to hide themselves, but…

“Venus-chan, I need you to watch Titian-kun for me while I go get your brothers.” Leonardo said as he hovered midway between guarding and searching. “I shouldn’t be gone long, but I don’t know how long it will take to find them. So I need you to promise me you won’t leave this room unless someone comes. If that happens I need you to hide.”

The memory of the baby wolf hovered in front of his eyes before he banished it. What kind on world had they landed in?

“It’s alright, Mama!” Venus reassured him. “I’ll take good care of Titian! You’ll see. Go get the others, they’ve probably gotten into trouble by now.”

“You’re right.” Leonardo smiled wanly. “I’ll go as fast as I can.”

“Be careful, Mama!” Venus called to him as he left.

“I will.” Leonardo promised before carefully wedging the door shut and leaving the building.

Once outside he hid himself in a convenient patch of shadows and considered things carefully. A tiny voice in the back of his head was screaming about time running out, but he ignored it in favour of deep breaths and a calm centre. If he and Venus had landed in there, and assuming that the distance between he and the children had remained the same, then the boys should be no more than a few hundred meters in… that direction.

Taking to the rooftops, Leonardo felt his heart skip as he gazed upon New York’s familiar skyline. For a moment, he dared to think that he might have found his own world. Some things were wrong though. The Saki skyscraper was missing, as was the Utrom’s Earth base tower, and he realized that this was yet another alternate world, though one more painfully familiar than the last two.

The alleyways blurred beneath him as he searched, and he wondered how he was supposed to attracted the boys attention without attracting human attention… especially the kind of human attention that trampled little babies underfoot and just left them in abandoned warehouses. He would be glad to leave this world behind, if only to get some distance from the memory.

A commotion a few streets over to his right attracted his attention, and he gratefully let his focus shift from his dark thoughts to an external threat. Peering down carefully he watched as some stereotypical street punks fought a losing battle against a dark haired man in a hockey mask and a… pizza delivery boy? From the golf bag filled with the sticks, clubs, and bats of various ball sports, Leonardo could only assume he was watching this world’s version of Casey Jones. Well, at least he was not a woman, but who the hell was the kid?

The last of the street gang joined their fellows in either merciful unconsciousness outright retreat, Casey (and that was defiantly Casey Jones) shouting insults about their punitive parentage after them. Casey was picking up a cricket bat (Casey Jones? Playing cricket?) inspecting it for damage, but the boy was heading further into the alley.

“Hey, Keno! Where are you going, kid?” Casey called when he noticed the boy walking deeper into the shadows. “You know Raph’ll have my hide if you get hurt.”

“I can take care of myself, Casey! I fought against the Foot too, remember?” The kid, Keno, shot back without looking, searching the back of the alley. “Besides, I thought I saw something moving back here. Did you notice how the gang had crowded in here? I want to make sure they didn’t dump somebody in the trash, or chase some poor kid down here.”

“Yer right.” Casey said after a minute, pushing up his mask. “It did look like they chased someone in here, didn’t it.”

Leonardo was frozen in place above them, mind whirling with the implications of what he had heard. It seemed like he had found himself in a world with some correlation to his own, much like the first where he had watched other versions of his brothers and himself fight the Shredder. Leonardo did not recognize the boy, Keno, but apparently he was one of Raphael’s strays. No matter what world, it seemed that Raphael retained his soft spot for troubled kids.

A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye and his breath caught. Those were his boys! He watched as Botticelli squirmed again, rustling the trash bags around him. Leonardo shook his head. That boy, it seemed that some things were genetic after all. At least it was a reasonably friendly force the kids were hiding from, and not someone truly dangerous to their safety.

Still, if he wanted to avoid complications, it would probably be best if they were seen as little as possible.

Good thing he was a ninja.

Approximately three smoke pellets, two shoves into a dumpster (with accompanying profanity) and four quick boosts up the fire escape later they were well on their way to completing that goal. Leonardo did not allow them to stop moving until they were several buildings away and hidden behind a large enough set of vents.

“Are you boys okay?” Leonardo asked, visually checking them over despite protests to the contrary. “I’m sorry it took so long to find you. Now, tell me what happened.”

In retrospect, Leonardo really should have known better than to ask.

“We were puttin’ the dishes in the kitchen like you told us to…” Ghiberti started off.

“Then the floor went all yellow and ATE us!” Botticelli cut in.

“Yeah! And we went ‘round and ‘round and ‘round…” Uccello illustrated with his arms.

“And we landed over there somewhere.” Masaccio pointed near the mouth of the alley where Leonardo had found them.

“And there were HUMANS all OVER the place!” Botticelli threw his arms open wide to show how the humans had been all around them.

“So we hid like you told us we should when we see humans…” Masaccio piped up.

“Even though we totally could have taken care of them.” Ghiberti chimed in.

“But those stinky humans chased us into that place where you found us!” Botticelli looked outraged.

“And then those other humans showed up and they started fighting!” Uccello bounced in excitement and left over adrenalin.

“And that’s what happened.” Masaccio concluded.

The entire explanation had taken less than twenty seconds. Leonardo blinked. The boys blinked back at him.

“You were seen?” Leonardo asked, grasping one of the important points. “By humans?”

“Well, kinda.” Masaccio admitted. “But not really.”

“Yeah, we ran and hid really, really fast!” Botticelli reassured Leonardo.

“Besides, they’re all sleeping now.” Uccello noted.

“Wish I coulda helped ‘em sleep.” Ghiberti sulked.

“Ah.” Leonardo muttered, Ghiberti was really too much like Raphael sometimes. “Well, as long as you didn’t get hurt. Let’s get back to your sister before something happens to her too.”

“Okay!” The agreement came in four-part chorus.

A few minutes and one close call with a loose brick later the five turtles slipped back into the abandoned warehouse cum destitute dance club. Motioning for the boys to be quiet, Leonardo left them hidden in the shadows for a minute as he scouted around to make sure they had not been followed and that no one had entered the place while he had been gone. Satisfied that they were safe for the moment Leonardo led them to the room where he had left Venus and Titian.

“Venus-chan? It’s me.” Leonardo called softly as he slid the door open.

“Mama!” Venus cried out in relief, looking up from where she had been playing with the baby. “You found the boys!”

“Mei-mei!” The boys cheered as they pushed past Leonardo into the room.

Shaking his head, Leonardo entered the room at a more sedate pace and shut the door behind him. The boys had crowed around Venus, staring curiously at Titian. The baby turtle was returning their intent inspection with equal fervour.

“Hey, Ma!” Botticelli called out, and Leonardo mentally threw up his hands in surrender. There was no helping it. Apparently he was doomed to be a mother. “Who’s this?”

“His name is Titian.” Leonardo told him, including the rest of the boys in the introduction. “I found him when he arrived here. He’d been abandoned, so I decided that he would come with us.”

“Does this mean he’s our brother too?” Masaccio asked.

“Yes, it does.” Leonardo said firmly.

“Yay!” Botticelli cheered. “Someone else gets to be the baby!”

“Yes, Bo.” Leonardo could not help laughing at that. “I suppose it does.”

The rest of the day passed peacefully. Leonardo went out once to fetch food, and soon after dark they all settled down to sleep off the stress of the day. Rousing enough to remind them to stay in the building when the children woke up and wanted to play, Leonardo slept with one ear open for trouble. It was later that night when Leonardo was woken completely from his doze by the sound of voices.

Familiar voices. His brother’s voices.

“Oh shell. Not again.” Leonardo sub-vocalized to himself, getting to his feet. He looked around the room, the kids were missing. Probably playing in the main room, his curse had more feeling this time. “Shell!”

Leonardo slipped through the shadows, tracking his brother’s copies by all of the noise they were making. Honestly, they were so loud it was a wonder if they were making any sort of effort stealth. Leonardo was briefly glad that he had explained to the children about being in the wrong world. They would hide from these strange turtles just as readily as they would hide from humans.

“Duuuuuude.” That was a Michelangelo whine. “Why are we wasting our time here?”

“For the last time, Mikey.” The other Leonardo sounded a little annoyed. “We’re here because Casey and Keno had some ninja trouble earlier today, and I want to make sure that the Foot aren’t up to their old tricks again.”

“But why here?” Mikey wanted to know.

“Because, knumbskull.” Ah, Raphael, ever a paragon of tact. “The ninja action happened near here. And Fearless Leader wants to check this place out because it was where we had that last fight with the Shredder.”

“Oh.” Leonardo could see them now, picking their way over the busted equipment near the stage. The Michelangelo hopped up to sit on the edge. “That makes sense.”

“Uh, guys?” Their Donatello sounded strange, more surprised than the gentle chiding Leonardo had been expecting. “I think you should take a look at this.”

“At what?” His Leonardo asked.

Wordlessly their Donatello pulled a stricken looking Venus out of hiding. Her eyes were wide and she clutched Titian to the top of her chest.

“What the?” Their Raphael sounded shocked, but that would change soon. “Another one of the Foot’s experiments gone wrong?”

There was the anger. The sai-wielding turtle was stomping over to loom above Venus, growling. The little girl whimpered a little and seemed to shrink into herself, curling protectively around the baby, and Leonardo hissed. Oh, image of his little brother or not that was just not on! Who did this creep think he was, threatening Leonardo’s daughter?

Leonardo stepped out of hiding unnoticed, though not for long. He meant to shout, but instead he made a sound that was part whistle, part trill, and part snarl. Whatever it was, it was loud and attention grabbing. The boys broke cover and darted over to stand behind him, huddled together but glaring at the interlopers.

Venus tried to do the same but was prevented when the other Raphael grabbed her arm.

“What the heck is goin’ on here?” The red clad turtle growled.

Leonardo replied with a precisely aimed shuriken. The angry turtle dropped Venus’s arm and dogged the missile. Venus scrambled away.

“Why the heck does this guy look like Leo?” This world’s Michelangelo felt the need to ask.

“I have no idea.” The other Leonardo said grimly. “But I intend to find out.”

“It could be a clone.” Came their Donatello’s suggestion. “I mean, look at what he’s wearing.”

Leonardo ignored them, knowing he must look strange to them in his environmental regulator.

“Venus, bring Titian over here.” He commanded, speaking for the first time.

“Yes, Mama.” She answered, hurrying over, skirting the other adult turtles warily. She made it to her brothers without incident.

There was a moment of perfect silence. The shouts and threats and recriminations stopped, but Leonardo knew better than to expect reprieve. The worst was yet to come.

Slowly this world’s Raphael turned to Leonardo’s counterpart. “Something you maybe want to tell us Leo?”

The other Leonardo made a strange, strangled sound of denial.

“Dude!” The Michelangelo screeched. “Are you saying that this freaky Leo clone is a chick?”

“With six children, none the less.” The Donatello mused, looking contemplative.

Leonardo knew that it would only get worse, and he gave his mortified counterpart a look of perfect sympathy and understanding.

It should be noted that in the history of the universe there have been many people in highly embarrassing situations that have wished for the earth to open up and swallow them in order to end their torment. However, physics being what they are it rarely ever happens that this specific desire is fulfilled, and they are left to suffer without reprieve. As it stands, Hamato Leonardo of Earth-3 is one of the few beings to have that specific wish granted.

Okay, given it was actually a multidimensional portal through space-time, and it was leaning upright at a forty-three degree angle, but let us not argue semantics right now.

/.../

Leonardo landed and his feet and looked around as the children righted themselves. High, vaulted, gothic architecture with suspiciously imposing displays of archaic weaponry and antiques.

“Um, Mama?” Uccello sounded worried. “What is that?”

Leonardo turned around. A huge circle-alter made of stone, carved with nasty looking runes and surrounded by distressingly solid looking containment tubes. Ferocious roars and bangs were coming from inside the tubes. On a hunch, Leonardo walked up to the closest one and looked inside.

Another Leonardo was slumped on the bottom of the tube.

“Right.” Leonardo said after a moment, jumping the short distance back to the floor. “We are not staying here.”

Obligingly, a portal opened up about three feet from the ground.

“That will work.” Leonardo said after a minute and led the kids through.

/.../

The next world they landed in seemed normal enough. Leonardo managed to find them a safe place to live in order to wait out their stay. Things stayed peaceful for a few days until he received a surprise visitor one night after the children had been put to bed.

“Hullo. You’d be Hamato Leonardo-san of Earth-3 then, eh?”

Leonardo whirled around, ninjaken whistling out of their sheaths with speed previously only seen in the nightmares of various Foot Ninja. There was an unfamiliar woman in his kitchen, standing a carefully measured distance away. Close enough for polite conversation, but not near enough to be intruding on his personal space, and inside his striking range while being outside of hers.

“Who are you?” Leonardo growled, barely checking the urge to cut first and ask questions later. Now was not the time to be channeling Raphael, not with the hatchlings in the next room.

“Easy there, luv. I come in peace.” While she was talking Leonardo was sizing her up, and she knew it too, judging by the vaguely amused expression she wore. Humanoid, rather emphatically female, glittery white skin, glowing psychedelic eyes, prismatic gold hair and similarly coloured ear tufts. Metallic wings that looked like a cross of avian and insect, she could probably hover as well as fly. Wearing a robe vestment that seemed to be entirely made up of slightly translucent veils of varying sizes and hues held together with an impossible to determine number of safety pins. She did not look like a threat. She looked like a stoned Trekkies wet dream. “Would you like me to put my hands on the wall and assume the position then?”

“What?” Leonardo sputtered as the intruder tossed him a saucy wink and giggling flirtatiously. “No! I want you to tell me what you’re doing here and what you want!”

“D’accord.” She folded her hands into her sleeves, and Leonardo noticed that inch-long gold talons tipped her fingers. “Shall we sit down? I think your tea is done. Really, is this any way to thank the one who stopped your impromptu whirlwind tour of the Multiverse?”

“That was you?” Blinking, Leonardo shook his head, sheathing his swords but remaining wary. The hatchlings room had no windows or ‘convenient’ air ducts. Not very good for circulation, but it calmed his nerves that no one could get in or out of the bedroom without him seeing. It was safe enough to indulge his unexpected guest, and besides, the tea really was ready.

Not a minute later they were both seated at Leonardo’s functional little table, holding mugs of jasmine tea.

“Now then.” Leonardo said grimly once the bare social necessities were over with. “Who are you and why are you here?”

“Mm. Right. My name is Retkon, and I’m a professional Time Seamstress.” She smiled briefly. “And I’m here because of you.”

“A Timestress?” Leonardo frowned, not liking where the conversation seemed to be going. “Like Renet?”

“Gods no!” Retkon snorted into her teacup. “Not anything like that bubble head, no offence to his Lordship Sims, but I’m an entirely difference creature all together.”

“What do you mean?” Leonardo was slowly beginning to relax, it almost seemed that for once in his life the stranger-who-dropped-in-unannounced-and-knew-his-name was not out to get him.

“Well, y’see, it’s mostly a matter of semantics. But it’s all in the name really.” Retkon shrugged eloquently. She really had the most expressive body language Leonardo had ever seen. You would need more than a gag to shut this woman up, in fact, Leonardo figured it would require a full body cast to keep her from expressing an opinion. He had never seen anyone get so much work out of an eyebrow before. She was also still talking. How nice, today seemed to be a day of miracles, he was actually getting a complete explanation for once. “You see… the fact is you mistook me. I’m not a Timestress. Rather superfluous job that. Mostly involves doing Lord Sims dusting and wearing very silly hats.”

“Lord Sims?” Leonardo echoed, faintly amused.

“What?” She paused to think. “Oh yes. Just a little pun, rather clever, eh what?”

“Hm.” Leo was noncommittal, but he might just not have gotten the joke.

“Right then, moving on.” Retkon flapped her hand dismissively. “Difference is I’m a Time Seamstress. I patch up holes the Trousers, tighten the seams, make certain that nothing’s gone falling through gaps in the pockets and so on. That sort of thing. It’s all quantum, really.”

“Excuse me, but, trousers?” Leonardo looked equal parts intrigued and appalled behind his solemn-ninja expression. It was all in the corners of his eyes and mouth.

“Right then, time for a lesson in the basics of the theory of temporal mechanics it seems.” She grinned and settled into a lecture, gesturing with her hands to illustrate. “I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase ‘the fabric of reality’ before, eh?”

“I have.” Leonardo replied to her expectant look. “Please continue.”

“Well the ‘fabric’ of Time is best described as a pair of Trousers.” Retkon snickered at Leonardo’s blank look. “Yes, like a pair of pants. It goes like this y’see, any given moment, say this one for example, could be considered the waistband, keeping together until you get to a pivotal moment where a choice has to be made. Now when you make that choice say, between kicking me out or sitting down to have tea, the Trousers split into Legs, one Leg is this one and in the other Leg you threw me out the window. The more unlikely a choice is, the weaker the seams are for that particular Leg.”

“I see.” Leonardo mused, watching the glittery visitor over his teacup.

“Of course, you can’t limit the analogy to human literalism.” Retkon said airily. “The Trousers have an infinite number of Legs, which continue to split into infinitely more Trouser Legs. If you tried to make a representation on the physical plane you’d end up with pants that only Nyartholep could wear.”

“No, I understand what you’re saying.” Leonardo reassured her. “It’s not just a matter of left or right, but also up, down, back, and forwards.”

“Not to mention fifty-two degrees South-South-East at a twenty-three degree angle incline.” Retkon grinned agreeably, inviting Leonardo to share the joke. “But yes, that’s the idea at it’s most basic.”

“And you job is what?” Leonardo asked instead. “To darn the tears?”

“That’s about right.” Retkon nodded. “While Lord Sims and his girl take care not to let all of space-time go messily exploding all over creation, I take care of the smaller stuff. Like say, locating temporally misplaced overprotective ninja turtles with mother hen tendencies and getting them back to the timeline where they belong?”

“But…” Leonardo narrowed his eyes at Retkon, whose mobile face was a panorama of innocent good intentions. “If that were the case, wouldn’t you have shown up earlier to fix my family’s little time travel problem, instead of waiting for us to deal with it ourselves?”

“Eheh. Who’s a clever peanut, then?” Retkon’s face went carefully blank before she grinned ruefully at Leonardo, the expression more real than the others she had worn over the course of the conversation. “Truth of the matter is, most times I don’t really have to put a direct hand in. Time travel mishaps tend to sort themselves out one way or another. And unless we’ve caused it, the people in my line of work tend to ignore things like independent Time travel unless it threatens to damage reality.”

“So what you’re saying…” Leonardo said slowly. “Is that my family being randomly shot one hundred years into the future was not a threat to you but my being here, wherever here is… is a bad thing?”

“Er, yeah. About that.” Retkon had the grace to look a bit sheepish. “Even you being here wouldn’t be a big deal if you hadn’t managed to land yourself in this particular Leg of Time.”

“… Alright, I’ll bite.” Leonardo said grimly after a moment of silence. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s unraveling.” Leonardo stared at her, unblinking, and Retkon gave him a small apologetic smile. “Look, I apologize for dumping this on you but you managed to land yourself in one of the worst Legs possible.”

“How so?” Leonardo finally managed to ask.

“Tang Shen never died, Yoshi never left Japan, and TCRI never set up an office here.” Retkon listed succinctly.

“Which means that in this world, my brothers and I never existed.” Leonardo interpreted, speaking softly as he considered the thought. He and his brothers had mentioned the possibility before. Spoken about what the world would have been like if Splinter’s beloved Master Yoshi had lived. Yet the thought of he and his brothers, his dear brothers, not existing… being nothing more that pet turtles in a bowl, that it was real, and not just a hypothetical situation… well. It gave Leonardo chills.

“Yes. Well… actually, no.” Retkon said simply in reply.

“Why is this er, leg unraveling?” Leonardo asked quietly.

“Look.” Retkon sighed. “I don’t want you to feel guilty or anything, because it’s not your fault at all. Nor is it your brothers. Things are fixed so that people from the same temporal line run at the same speed, and as intelligent as your younger brother is, you haven’t got the, pardon the pun, time left to wait for him to locate you.”

Leonardo was silent, waiting patiently for her to get to the point. Retkon sighed again.

“It’s because you’re here at all.” She said softly, eyes projecting sympathy. “I’m sure you can guess where your physical counterpart here in this world is, but in Japan there is also a Hamato Li, eldest of the four Hamato grandsons, who brings great honour to his grandfather’s line.”

“What?” Leonardo froze. “What do you mean?”

“Listen.” Retkon’s voice was gentle, her words chosen carefully. “You and your brothers are your father’s sons, even though you were not born to him, and your father feels much the same about his master. That’s because for all intents and purposes, you are. The people who carry the Hamato name in this Leg are much the same souls as those who carry it in your own. And it is because of this fact that this Leg is becoming unstable. The Entropy Cascade effect is tearing the fabric, and your acting a bit like a sharp rock constantly rubbing against the fabric. Eventually the knee is going to get a hole worn in it, because souls are unique, and having two of you here means that the balance is thrown off. This reality was weak to begin with, because ninety-nine point nine percent of the time Hamato Yoshi ends up in New York somehow. Right now you’ve got your analogous mortal shell in one place, your spirit in another and then you’re sitting here body-and-soul in another place. The Trousers are getting a bit twisted and threadbare because of that.”

“Thus unraveling the fabric.” Leonardo frowned, considering it. “I suppose it makes sense.”

“Mm.” She said into her cup.

“And it’s nice to know that my brothers and I still exist in a way.” A brief smile flickered on his face. “Even if it is as humans.”

“Heh. I hear ya. Yer all pretty damn cute as humans too, thought a bit short for my tastes.” Retkon snickered, a bit before composing herself again. “Right then, look, most of the time the failsafe protocols my department sets up prevents things like this from happening. You can travel within your own Leg of time and it’s braches with something close to impunity.”

“Why is that?” Leonardo asked, remembering the time storm and facing the Shredder while trying to protect Cody.

“Because you belong in that Temporal Leg, and just existing, not matter how far up or down in it you are, won’t and can’t do any damage.” Retkon chewed her lip for a moment. “See, the problem is that this world is similar to your own but not the same. If you had landed in a world completely removed from your own, like your friend Usagi’s, where you don’t exist in any aspect at all, you’d be fine. It would be the same if you’d landed in any of the worlds where you and your brothers are giant, mutated turtles. But this place is both too close but not far enough removed from your reality of origin.”

“And that’s bad?” Leonardo interjected.

“Yeah.” Retkon nodded. “That’s bad. Like trying to push an oval peg into a circular hole. If you push it long enough you can wear down the peg until it fits, but it just doesn’t quite work and something inevitably ends up breaking.”

“Well, this has been enlightening.” Leonardo said, finishing his now lukewarm tea. “So now that my existence has threatened the end of this world as we know it, what happens next?”

“Well, that’s what I’m here for really.” Retkon said, sitting back in her chair. “My job is to both fix that damage and find the cause, that being you in this case.”

“And how are you planning on fixing it?” Leonardo asked warily, if this woman intended to wipe them from existence then they were going to have words.

“I haven’t got a whole lot of what you might call ultimate cosmic power, though I do have a very nice house on the seventh level of Null Time, great view… anyway, I have enough skill to make up for it. What I’m gonna do with you is patch you over to a world where you won’t be a victim of casualty.” Retkon’s hands traced parabola and loops in the air. “And as an added bonus I’ll toss in changing les petites temporal frequencies to run on the same wavelength as yours so you won’t have to worry about any random changes in age, as well as putting up a signal to get your rather frantically searching little brothers moving in the right direction.”

“Why can’t you just send me home?” Leonardo had to know.

“Too much interference.” Retkon told him with a shrug. “Stable places like Earth-3 and the Battle Nexus are resistant to my powers, since I’m stronger when reality is a bit more fluid. And before you ask, no, I can’t just ask Lord Sims to send you home either, because by the time I filled out all the paperwork, arranged an appointment, got in to see him, and explained the situation your shell will have turned grey. It’s faster and easier just to do it my way.”

“The place you send me isn’t going to be falling apart too, is it?” Leonardo knew it paid to be cautious.

“Nah, don’t worry.” Retkon flapped a hand at him. “I’ll be sending you to a stable reality. It’ll just have to be one where my powers are applicable.”

“May I make a request?” Leonardo asked slowly, turning a tough over in his head.

“Sure thing.” She nodded for him to continue.

“Try to find a place where I won’t have to worry about being eaten or dissected, please.” Leonardo was tired of landing in the middle of crisis after crisis.

“You don’t ask for much, do you?” Retkon grinned. “I’ll do my best. Though I can guarantee that I won’t drop you anyplace dangerous.”

“Define dangerous.” Leonardo narrowed his eyes.

“No wars, apocalypse, or megalomaniac villains.” Retkon listed, ticking each item off on her fingers.

“I suppose that will have to do.” He sighed.

“Perfect! We have an accord!” Retkon clapped her hands. “Off you go then!”

“Wait! You can’t mean right now!” Leonardo protested.

It was too late for Leonardo to argue. Reality was already twisting and fading around him. Leonardo had to close his eyes to keep from getting sick at the contortions the world was making.

When he opened his eyes again, Leonardo found himself standing in the middle of what seemed to be a park of some kind. Tucked in an out of the way corner of the park, Leonardo and the turtle tots, awakened by the dimensional shift, could see that the people walking along the paths were not human. Instead, they looked an awful lot like turtles.

One of the larger specimens stopped as he walked by them, giving Leonardo a thorough once over before he smiled and spoke. “Well, aren’t you a lovely little thing.”

Leonardo looked up at the one who had just, for all intents and purposes, hit on him. It looked like the unholy love child of Raphael and Traxamus. In other words, it was a big red dino-turtle. It, or he, seemed to be waiting for a reply to its opening salvo. Oh, Retkon would pay for this. Safe world his perky green buttocks.

=/=

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic originally stalled out after the next (second) interlude, but I've recently come into new TMNT inspiration and so you should be seeing new content fairly soonish.
> 
> Thanks for sticking around, duckies.
> 
> (And yes, Retkon is something of an Author insert. Happy January-is-self-insert-month. ♥)


	4. Interlude the Second: Safety Pins FTW!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thing about being lost is that you're supposed to sit still once you find shelter and wait to be found. Unfortunately events had conspired to get Leonardo _really_ lost in Space-Time.
> 
> Luckily, the Turtles have always been pretty skilled at making allies and friends in the right places.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another interlude, where we get to see behind the scenes of Leonardo's little multiverse trip-head-over-shell through Time and Space. Once again I have utilized the existing structures of a fictional Reality to bend the plot to my will.
> 
> Mwahaha. ^_^
> 
> Oh, were you expecting something else from me? Sorry. *flounces away*

=/=

**_('Not my division'? All of TIME AND SPACE is my division!)_ **

“Oh for the love of chocolate and peanut butter!” Retkon whined as she stared at the tangled snarl of a mess the Trousers of Time were currently in. “How the hell did this tomfoolery even _happen_?”

Sighing, the Seamstress pulled out her tools and went to work, tracking the tangle to its origins.

“So it started here in Reality-03, with a self-correcting independent time-jump.” She muttered, gold claws, six-dimensional needles, and a steaming iron flashing in the light of Null-Time as she patched, darned, hemmed and straightened the Trousers out. “Then went here, where the Law of Humorous Casualty kicked in, as per Reality-87 regulations. A quick couple of stitches here and we won’t have to deal with anyone popping out of existence, _hate_ filling out the paperwork for that bunk. Then we’ve got interference via magical summoning to Reality-97. Ah, right, there’s the Rule of Plot Momentum taking effect, which sent it over here to Reality-14, then bounced it over to Reality-91. Ha! Caught you!”

Retkon paused as she looked back over the legs she had fixed, before then turning a disgruntled expression to the barely visible Leg she was holding.

“Oh spank me silly and call me a paddle, how did you manage to get yourself from your nice solid R-Numerals over to Are-Not-Bloody-Likely?” She scowled down at the far more solid looking mass that was tangled in the fragile threads of the far-flung reality it most _definitely_ did not belong in. Retkon tightened up the seams and quickly slapped on a patch.

“ _There_.” She sighed, wiping her forehead. “That should keep you from ripping this reality apart any further. But bloody hell, I _hate_ having to deal with messes like these.”

“You do realize, I hope.” Retkon groused to the solid patch on the barely-there Leg. “That I’m going to need your cooperation to move you without totally busting through the seams on this Leg, thanks to whichever _highly improbable and violently unstable_ method of transport you’re using so indiscriminately. _Honestly_ , why can’t you heroes just stick to your own designated areas of the multi-verse? This was supposed to be my day off!”

Throwing her hands up into the air Retkon stepped into the Timestream of the Leg she held in order to deal with the mess that had been made. “Just because I deal with the outer reality doesn’t mean I should be taken for granted!”

/…/

Thirty minutes of subjective time later she stepped back out into her area of Null-Time. Still muttering dire imprecations to herself, she plucked the bright patch from the tenuous threads holding it in place. A smattering of safety pins from her left side held the edges of the hole together. “Now don’t you go and do anything to tear yourself any further to bits, I’ll just take care of this and pop right back!”

“Honestly!” Retkon grumbled as she located a reasonably solid, yet suitably alternate reality to patch the turtle and his brood on to. “Can’t anyone just stay where they belong anymore? _No_ , they have to go jumping realities and times like ruddy leapfrogs, making a great huge mess of things. Then _I_ have to go and fix the cock up they’ve made of the Trousers. Nobody appreciates the effort a good Seamstress goes through nowadays.”

“There!” Retkon stepped back and grinned brilliantly. “That should suit the letter of the contract nicely! A world of turtle-people, nothing for him to complain about there, eh?”

Turning away from the Alternate-Evolution Leg, Retkon flitted back over to the Leg she had pulled the patch from and carefully rewove the threads to fill in the gap left by the removal of Hamato Leonardo and the rest of his little multi-verse tour group. “Damn fragile low-probability realities. If they aren’t fading out they’re imploding themselves! I have put too much effort into keeping this one going to watch it fall to pieces now! Hardly ever find human type Hamato ninja anymore. It’s always turtles-turtles-turtles. Except for that one planet where they’re rats. ”

/.../

“Done and done!” Retkon said as she knotted the last thread. “Now to finish with the rest of it.”

Quick as thought, Retkon found herself on a completely different level of Null Time. Looking around with a frown the Seamstress wove one of the gauzy patches between her long fingers. “Now where is, ah. Gotcha.”

Renet eeped as a shimmering arm was draped over her shoulders and a familiar voice purred in her ear. “Renet, darling! It’s been far to long. How are things?”

“Gah! Retkon? Like, what are you doing here?” Renet jumped out from under the Seamstress’ arm. “You, like, work on the Outside Levels, don’t you?”

“Oh pish! Aren’t I allowed to visit an old friend?” Retkon waved one hand indignantly. “One would think that you weren’t happy to see me!”

“Uh, that’s like, because I’m not.” Renet scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“Whyever for?” Retkon blinked, affecting a look of bewildered hurt.

“You made fun of my hat!” Renet accused, pointing a finger in Retkon’s face. “And you, like, pissed off my boss! I hardly got to have any fun for, like, ever after you showed up!”

“Well I _am_ sorry, poppet.” Retkon said airily, waving aside Renet’s finger with carefully tucked claws. “But you _do_ have a very stupid hat, and Lord Sims _is_ very short, so it’s hardly _my_ fault that offense was taken for simply pointing out the facts.”

“Oooh! You!” Renet stomped her foot, unable to find the words to complete the thought as she turned bright red in frustration.

“There, there, sweetling.” Retkon cooed condescendingly. “I know you must be horribly bored, stuck on the inside of Time like this. Why just a moment ago I had to clean up this huge tangle in the Trousers. Some poor thing from Earth-03 managed to get himself sling-shot through a good five Realities before I managed to catch him and patch him over to a stable Alternate to wait for rescue.”

“Like, Earth-03?” Renet was trying _very_ hard to look like she did not care about the conversation, but was failing at it rather badly. “Who was it?”

“Hmm? Oh, some little green fellow, what was his name?” Retkon gazed upwards for a moment, lips pursed in thought, before snapping her fingers with a happy click. “Leonardo, that was it! Had a bunch of the most _adorable_ little darlings with him.”

“So, uh, he was, like, a turtle right?” Renet asked, worrying her lower lip.

“Oh, yes.” Retkon nodded, smiling ever so slightly.

“So, like, where did you patch him over too?” Renet questioned nonchalantly.

“Oh, one of the What-If worlds. You know the ones, where the dominant species is changed from the statistically prevalent norm? Oh, but what am I _saying_ , you’re a _Timestress_. Reality jumping is a bit outside your, ah, _specialization_. Sorry, darling, I didn’t mean to confuse you with shoptalk.” Retkon shrugged and patted Renet’s cheek as the blond fumed. “Well it’s been wonderful talking to you dear, but I really must be going now.”

“So soon?” Renet stumbled over the words, unused to saying them. Retkon was just so _irritating_! Renet had never had to figure out how to keep the Seamstress around for _longer_ before! Oh no, now she would never find out which world Leonardo was stuck in!

“Things to do and worlds to save, you know how it is.” Retkon flashed a grin and leaned over, tucking the fabric she had been playing with into the top of Renet’s bodice. “Here you go, a little something to remember me by. Ta-ta!”

Renet frowned at the place Retkon had been standing before she pulled the fabric out from where the Seamstress had tucked it. Renet held it up to the light and looked at it. It was one of Retkon’s Leg scraps. Probably kept from the last time she had hemmed the Trousers. It was all Retkon wore, pieces and patches of the Trousers of Time that she had clipped or removed during her mending.

“Holy crow!” Renet’s eyes flew wide open as she realized what she was holding. “This has to be from the world where she dumped Leo! I gotta go tell the guys! They’re probably looking for him and this’ll tell them where to look!”

Renet ran off towards Lord Simultaneous’ palace at the fastest pace she could muster in her thigh-high boots.

Sighing and rolling her eyes from where she had stood watching just outside of Time, Retkon shook her head. “Took you long enough to figure it out, little moron.”

Job complete, Retkon fluttered off to find something to amuse herself with until the next time her skills were needed.

Hey, filling in plot holes is a full time job, you know.

=/=

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And look at that, I've _finally_ caught back up to myself. The next time I update this story there will be _entirely new content_. Doesn't that sound grand?

**Author's Note:**

> I know the timeline seems a bit patchwork, but this is mostly based on the end of Fast Forward and heavily biased towards the 2003 cartoon. The new characters that show up and some of the events described are taken from all of the live-action movies, the CGI movie, and the various TV spin-offs that have occurred over the years.


End file.
